As they gathered excitedly before sunrise Saturday in the Pleasanton Walmart parking lot, a crowd of California Republicans marveled they'd never done anything like this before - given up their weekend to head to a neighboring state with strangers, and knock on the doors of people they don't even know.

But moved by the passions of the 2012 election, dozens of them - a recent college graduate, small-business owners, the mother of a deployed fighter pilot and a retired engineer among them - boarded a bus for a long trip to Nevada's Washoe County to do their part for Mitt Romney in a critical swing state.

"I'm so concerned for the future of my grandchildren," said Mary Doering, 62, a retired beauty consultant from Campbell with six grandchildren who wore her "O Mitt Obama" T-shirt. She has spent the past two weekends in the Silver State and plans to return next weekend.

"The economy is bad," she added. "And I'm concerned about the immoral lifestyle in this country."

Jack Watt, 52, a T-shirt manufacturer from Hayward, said the dead-heat election has finally moved him to action.

"This has gotten me out of my box," he said, shaking his head. "I've never done anything like this before ... but I feel as an American, it's a privilege to vote. You have to do your duty, and this is my duty to God and my country."

With days until the Nov. 6 election, the passions on the GOP side are a dramatic departure from just months ago when Romney was only halfheartedly embraced by his party's conservative voters and some of them even questioned whether he was a Republican in name only.

Mending fragments

But that was before the Republican field came together, before Romney's post-debate momentum accelerated - and before "Anybody But Obama" fever swept the once-fragmented Republican Party.

While Democrats, too, are amassing crowds of volunteers to hit Nevada's key counties in the final days before the election, a poll released last week by the Public Policy Institute of California found that a greater proportion of likely Republican voters are excited about their candidate than Democrats are about President Obama.

They are voters like Tea Party organizer Sally Zelikovsky, who hosted a fundraiser at her home in San Rafael for onetime Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann - but who joined hundreds of Californian Republicans from Los Angeles, Orange County, Sacramento and the Bay Area who drove to Reno and Las Vegas for the weekend to vacuum up every last vote for their candidate.

"This is how we in California can best have an impact on this election," said Zelikovsky, a founder of the Bay Area Patriots, a Tea Party group. "Nevada is in play," she said, "and that's where our energy needs to go."

'Fear and loathing'

Tom Del Beccaro, chairman of the California Republican Party, said what he's seeing among his troops is "an exact reversal from four years ago, when the Democrats were coming out in droves compared to the Republicans."

He said Republicans' fired-up feelings are "a combination of fear and loathing about Obama" and their worries about the future. After the presidential debates, Del Beccaro added, "they're looking less at ideology and more at solutions, and that's Romney's charm."

Veteran Democratic strategist Donnie Fowler cautions that while GOP enthusiasm appears high, that alone may not win the battle.

"This reminds me a lot of the 2004 election, when all Democrats cared about was getting rid of George W. Bush," he said. "It's the same language, the same fervor to get rid of the president."

And Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry's failing bid in that election shows that "a lot of wars have been lost against the insurgency of a professionally organized army," said Fowler.

Fowler's analysis of forces on each side of the presidential contest suggests that Obama's team has the advantage in the number of field offices nationwide (755 to 283). It also holds an advantage in early voting efforts in key swing states, including Ohio and Florida.

Still, GOP volunteers like Carl Keels of Danville, a former teacher and tax planner, said they are moved to do their part in a historic choice. Keels is convinced the former Massachusetts governor is the best hope for the country to come out of its economic malaise.

"All I can see is the leadership in Washington is divided ... there's more polarization than ever," he said. "I think Romney will be a breath of fresh air."

No perfect candidate

Some analysts like author and blogger Patrick Dorinson said the swelling GOP enthusiasm for Romney shows a wide range of Republicans have finally come together.

"The Tea Party has matured; they've changed tactics. And they want to get rid of Obama," Dorinson said. "They're learning the hard realities of politics. If you're looking for a savior, that happened 2,000 years ago. No one is a perfect candidate."

Steve Schmidt, the GOP strategist and former adviser to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and 2008 presidential candidate John McCain, has said Romney's recent moves to the political middle - on social issues and even foreign policy - have clearly made a difference.

"I think the Romney campaign has made a political calculation," Schmidt told MSNBC last week after the third debate when Romney appeared to be closer than ever to Obama's foreign policy positions. "I suspect that they are right - that there will not be a political price to pay for his flexibility on these issue changes."

As she boarded the bus in Pleasanton, Ildiko Scott of Danville - the mother of a 27-year-old fighter pilot now deployed in Afghanistan - said she met Romney during a recent fundraiser at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. And now, she said, she will be working for Romney this weekend, making calls and knocking on doors in Nevada.

"I told my son I was going to Reno, because I can't take it anymore," she said. "He said, 'Thank you, Mom.' "

-- Coming Monday: Some of President Obama's liberal faithful are hitting the panic button.

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